Carried Off
by Chibi-Reaper
Summary: Like all the best love stories, it began with violence and kidnapping.
1. Chapter 1

"Ranma! Save us!" The demand came, the moment that he returned from school, prompting a sigh as he took in the sight before him.

It wasn't at all an out-of-the-ordinary request, either. Hardly a week went by without someone yelling for him to save them. This time, however, was a _little_ different somehow. He had saved a lot of people, including almost every one of the Tendos, his father, his mother, the other fiancees, his rivals from time to time, and a number of people just out and about Nerima who simply fell under the 'Innocent Bystander' category, and he was used to saving them from clearly present and unmistakable things. Rampaging martial artists, angry dragons and phoenix gods, stampeding buffalo, giant ghost cats, even Happosai if he absolutely had to.

On such scales, what seemed to be a little girl usually didn't even register.

"What's wrong?" Akane asked just before Ranma could, inadvertently allowing Ranma to step back and assess the situation, something he was rarely allowed to in other situations such as this, only dimly listening to Soun wail about being challenged to a fight, the stakes being food and Sake, and how the little girl was eating more than Ranma and Genma combined and was going to break the dojo's budget, and the fathers hadn't managed to make her leave, and on and on and on...

"I'll take care of it then. You should know by now that Ranma doesn't fight girls, Dad." Akane decided, jerking Ranma's attention away.

"Wait, _what_?" He wondered aloud. "I don't fight girls? What gave you that impression?"

"Of course you don't fight-"

"Shampoo." Ranma stated flatly, raising a single finger as though to tick off the name, then added a second. "Ukyou. Cologne. Kodachi. Azusa. That noodle delivery girl, Kaori. Pink and Link. Rouge. And that's just the memorable ones."

"But-!" Akane insisted, sure of herself and not willing to back down in the face of logic and evidence.

"Look, have I ever once actually said anything like 'I don't fight girls'?" He asked plainly. "No. So don't put words in my mouth! 'Sides, this one's a little much for you, I think."

"She's a _little girl_." Akane stressed, fists clenching slowly.

"She's oni." Ranma deadpanned, getting a raised eyebrow and a smirk from the little girl in question.

"What gave it away?"

"The horns." Ranma deadpanned again. "Also, that you're drinking heavier than my old man usually does, and I'm not seeing any real effect, but mainly the horns."

The oni nodded somberly, drawing attention to the horns in question and forcing Akane to wonder just how she hadn't immediately noticed something so blindingly obvious.

"So, you gonna give it a shot?" The oni wondered aloud.

"Don't rush me... I'm thinking. I don't suppose that if I ignored you, you'd just go away eventually?"

Akane's elbow and Soun's heel, coupled with a bellow about how he _had_ to accept all challengers, and ignoring that the oni wasn't actually doing any challenging at the moment, showed exactly what they thought about that idea.

"Yeah, that's about what I figured." Ranma mumbled through a mouthful of floorboard. "So yeah. I guess I am."

"Alright! I'm Suika, of Ibuki clan, and if I win.... hm. Do you have anything I might want?" She wondered.

"Aside from the five hundred yen in my other pants? Not really." He admitted.

"No help for it then. So if I win, I'll just do the traditional thing, and carry you away!"

"That's how it is, huh?" Ranma grumbled. "So, what would happen after that?"

"Huh? After?" Suika wondered. "I think I'm supposed to eat you. Or ravage you. Or both, maybe. You look tasty though, so I'm sure we'll have fun finding out however it goes!" She said cheerfully.

"Ranma.... you _lolicon_!" Akane yelled, having gone steadily more incandescently red since the word 'ravage' had entered the equation, and punched him into a wall.

"Yeah..." Ranma said after stepping back through the hole, cracking his knuckles. "Can't say I'm keen on being eaten. But then, I'm not planning on losing, either. I'm Ranma Saotome, of the Saotome-ryu, and if I win then you have to call it square with Mr. Tendo and leave, okay?"

"Sure, why not! I don't plan on losing either, though. Ibuki clan takes great pride in our strength."

"Well then, let's-" Soun managed to get out before Ranma threw himself to the side and out of the house, barely dodging a punch that seemed to leave the air rippling around it for a moment before Suika leapt after him, the afterimage she had left behind wavering then fading away.

From the first pass, Ranma knew this would be a difficult fight. Suika was, all things considered, roughly as fast as his girl-form, and if he was judging accurately then she had enough power behind those fists to knock the wind out of Ryoga for a little while. Given that he had, foolishly in retrospect, never actually gone through the Breaking Point training himself, if he allowed the oni to land a blow then it would seriously mess up his day. He was having to go all out right from the bat.

And then, apparently sensing they were at a sort of stalemate, Suika upped the ante and things began to get ridiculously difficult with the new tricks she brought to bear. After all, just growing really big for a short time or throwing a really big rock really fast was one thing, and even the fireballs and breath had some precedent.

Throwing around what could only be described as temporary, miniature black holes, which wrecked the Tendo's yard, and turning herself into mist just as he was about to land a solid hit, and turning back to counterattack and force him to scramble out of the way... that was just plain unfair. Within a minute, the landscaping could almost be considered beyond repair, and he had twice had to quickly pat out fires that had caught onto his second favorite silk shirt before simply discarding it.

For his part, he had picked up that his chi-blasts still had some effect on her while she was mist, and could work with that, although Suika tended to dodge them with almost depressing ease if she was embodied at the time. He'd barely needed Genma's shouted advice to sink into the umi-sen-ken and start making like a ninja.... and then, after getting off barely two sneak attacks on the oni, things had gone just straight to hell.

Her thought process was clearly obvious, considering what it lead to. She couldn't see Ranma anymore. Therefore, he could be hidden and attack from anywhere in the nearby area. So, everywhere in the nearby area was someplace he could potentially be, and should be attacked to see if he was there. So what could be a better idea than _attacking everything in the general area all at once_, to minimize the chance of missing and getting countered?

The next minute or so had been an implacable hurricane of energy, and he'd been forced to drop out of the umi with an unfortunate, glancing blow early on, followed by dozens more just like it, leaving him heavily battered by the time one of the orbs caught him full on and slammed him into the stone wall. It had been inevitable, given that he doubted he could produce as many of his own chi-blasts all at once without passing out from the strain, and Suika didn't even seem a little bothered by the effort, suggesting she could hold it all day if need be.

And then, adding injury to insult, she had dropped the technique the moment he was hit, charging in behind it to deal a crushing body blow with a flying headbutt before he had even started to bounce from the initial impact.

Result, a moment of blinding agony, a deep impact crater in the wall to fall out of, and, upon coughing into his hand after dropping to his knees, enough blood to be taken as evidence of serious, possibly debilitating internal injuries that would have to be dealt with really soon.

"I win!" Suika declared cheerfully before Ranma stood, wobbling heavily, blood pouring from the corner of his mouth.

"Not yet..." He rasped, muscling his way past the pain, knowing that this was a bad idea but forced into it by his own code and bravado. "I haven't lost... until I lose consciousness.... and can't fight at all."

"Okay." Suika agreed, immediately followed by another burst of blinding pain as her fist was buried deeply into his stomach. The world swam before his eyes as he collapsed once more to his knees.

"All right." Suika said, the words seeming distorted, as though she were talking from the bottom of a well. "I'll be carrying you away now!"

There was a sharp, metallic click and a weight settled about his neck, before the whole world went black.

xxx

Upon regaining consciousness, Ranma kept his eyes closed for a few moments, certain that whatever he was going to see when he opened them would be both unpleasant and distressing.

He was right.

On the one hand, there was a distinct lack of fire, brimstone and wailing dead, which suggested that he hadn't been taken to hell itself, which was a plus, given that since he was dealing with an oni that wasn't at all outside the realm of possibility. In fact, the woods that they were in were slightly familiar to him, which suggested that they hadn't gone terribly far at all, and hopefully only a few hours had passed, as it was only now just approaching sundown.

On the other hand, there was _going to be_ fire, and in the relatively near future. A large bonfire, to be precise. A large bonfire which, in point of fact, he was suspended directly above, chained securely to a crude, but effective suspended metal pole, much like a boar on a spit. In one way, a very minor way, that could be looked at optimistically, as he had just realized that he was naked beneath the chains, and it was starting to get a little chilly. In pretty much all other respects, it was definitely a Bad Thing.

Suika walked past his field of vision, wearing one of those funny chef hats and carrying a small barrel of, if his nose wasn't deceiving him, barbeque sauce. This was sufficient cause for alarm to shift Ranma from 'worry' right past 'full blown, frantic, and desperate panic' and to a sort of zen-like calm on the far side.

"Hey." He said pleasantly, mind whirring to find a way to talk his way out of things. "I... don't suppose you would consider _not_ eating me? I would consider it a really huge favor..."

"The recipe says you have to be marinated. Here, drink this." Suika said distractedly, focused on a small book in her hand as she poked the mouthpiece of her gourd almost into Ranma's throat, twisting the pole he was chained to around in order to get the correct angle.

Realizing he had no choice in the matter, and hoping to get the obstruction out of the way so that he could get back to negotiating a change of dinner menu, he rapidly gulped down the sake threatening to drown him. He only realized his error after several seconds, at which point he realized that he had imbibed slightly more than twice of what the gourd's volume should have allowed it to hold and the steady stream of alcohol showed no signs at all of slackening. Several further seconds after that were spent in continued drinking, as the only other option was choking and hacking painfully as he tried to keep the liquid away, after which Suika nodded absently to herself and tugged the gourd back away and took a swig of her own, then put it away somewhere Ranma couldn't see.

Now, Ranma couldn't honestly say that he had never drunk alcohol before, or that he had never been drunk, but it was generally not by his design as he preferred not to drink at all, holding a deep seated fear of waking up in someone's arms, wearing half, or less, of a wedding tuxedo, or worse, a wedding _dress_. As such, his thoughts had rapidly gone fuzzy and disoriented, even as he fought off as many of the effects of the substance as he could, while at the same time focusing his ki towards self-healing... well, just about everything in his torso region, really. Provoking another hit to an already injured area probably hadn't been his brightest move ever, he had to admit.

He was losing mental coherence, he realized, worrying about his internal healing over the far more pressing and immediate problem of _being cooked over a fire and eaten_. Absently, he noted that he would have to cut Ryoga some slack with the bacon and porkchop jokes. If he survived. He should probably get back to work on assuring that he did.

He was bound in such a way that he couldn't break the chains or pole, but he had enough of his internals fixed that he could move without any real fear of worsening his injuries. He started up an odd sort of full body motion that, for a few moments, didn't seem to bear fruit. Up and down. Up and down. Up and down. Then, after a short period of the repeating motion, just enough momentum had built up that the iron pole began to move as well, up and down, at first merely the barest of twitches, but rapidly increasing. Up and down. This trick would hinge on the support poles being 'Y' shaped, rather than like the head of a sewing needle, but the fact that they were made of wood meant that it was likely they were. Up and down. Just a little more, and the pole would be high enough that... _there_. Ranma twisted himself violently to the side, the pole moving with him, and could almost taste the escape as it cleared the supports and began falling.

Only to freeze in place. Ranma somehow _knew_, even without looking, or indeed being able to move his head enough to look, that Suika had absently caught the heavy iron pole with a single distracted hand, with no real effort behind it, and was right now replacing it back onto its props. Absently, giving no more particular thought to the escape attempt than brushing away a bothersome insect.

"That could have gone better." Ranma admitted, with only the slightest of drunken slurs. Now that he paused to think through the mental fuzziness, his hasty escape attempt had been doomed from the beginning. With his hands and feet bound as they were, even if he'd made it to the ground, the best he would have been able to do would have been to roll awkwardly away and hope that he could maneuver between the trees, at a rate where he wouldn't even be able to escape if Suika limited herself to a lazy walk.

Suika absently sprinkled him with a handful of something green... maybe paprika. Or maybe sage, or something. Nice, either way. He was going to taste great, when this was finished.... He was completely smashed, he realized. There was probably a really good reason why he shouldn't be at all happy about that fact but, for the life of him, he couldn't quite put his finger on exactly what it was.

Suika slapped him in the face a couple of times with a small brush laden with... he carefully licked his lips, unsure at first what it was, and twitching occasionally as she ran it over what flesh the chains didn't cover... oh, right, the barbeque sauce. Nice. Hickory. Good to know that she was at least splurging on the good stuff... he shook himself lightly in a vain attempt to shake off the fuzzy confusion and warmth that the sake had left in him, but noted that she was now staring at the book and frowning.

"It says I'm supposed to have dressed you by now... Should I put your clothes back on? Or are you supposed to be wearing something special...? I don't get it." She pouted.

Ranma opened his mouth, paused to think, then closed it again. He worked it back open and closed a few times, trying to get a handle on what he was going to say before the oni made a decision on what to do and this sudden, sparkling window of opportunity left him.

"Ssss.... Ssssoooo...." He said slowly, trying his hardest to limit the drunken slurring to a minimum, but not entirely sure he was succeeding. "I... tak't you're nnn.... noot _'zactly_ th' best cook rounnd..."

She glared balefully at him and he hastened to continue.

"S'just... s'just, s'just... just'min't, lemmeee wait f'r the trees t' stoop whirlin'. I... I drunk I might be think." He confided somberly, blinking rapidly. "Anywaaay, s'just... s'just, I'm not that bad with... with something. What're we talking about again?"

"Food."

Ranma stared incomprehensibly at Suika for a moment before light dawned behind his eyes.

"S'_right_ isn't? Anyway, s'just, I'm actually... pretty... pretty good? I think... Pretty goodinthe kishen m'self. Can... c'n cook _good_. C'n cook _bett'r, best_ 'f 'm not _being_ cooked." He stressed, perhaps stretching the truth about his culinary ability a tiny bit, but chalking it up to a good cause.

If she was in the habit of eating things prepared over a campfire... or, in his case, bonfire, then it wasn't exactly like he'd need to be breaking out the cookbooks _someone_ had 'liberated' from the Chardin's and studying foie gras anytime soon, anyway.

"But you look so _yummy_." Suika complained. "And I'm hungry _now_."

"C'n say f'r sure... y'll find sooomeone elsh's good cook'sme?" Ranma asked, really hoping that she didn't bring up-

"That Tendo girl, who was doing all the chores while I ate..." Suika mused.

"Sh's not tha' great." Ranma lied immediately. "'Sides, jus' cooks tradi.. tradish'm... tra-_dish_-nal food mos'time, dunno much else 'ceptafew things. Know's loshmore, I do." He might have to break out the Chardin's books anyway, at this rate. "An'... andon'you haft' fight someone t'carry'm off...? Kashmi don' fight. Sho y'r stuck w'me, shtill."

"I guess you have a point." Suika decided, thinking. "Oh! I just had an idea! I let you be the cook _now_, and carry someone off _later_, and you can cook them _for_ me! Does that sound good?"

Ranma worked his mouth a few times as the proposition sunk in. What? He could... but then... what? The haze seemed to lift slightly as he considered his quandary.

In order to _not_ be killed and eaten _now_... he would have to agree to essentially any terms the oni set. Which could very well involve him later desecrating the bodies of others in such a way that she would enjoy eating them more.

Ordinarily, Ranma would have balked here, his pride and morality forbidding him to agree to such terms, even with the weighty consequences to himself. However, he was currently just on the right side of a very fine line that separated him from being either so smashed as to be completely incoherent, or simply unconscious. With enough alcohol in their system, many would say things they would ordinarily never say, and do things they would normally never do.

Ranma was no different, and in the face of this critical decision what came to the fore was _not_ his typically pseudo-heroic, relatively moral choice of lifestyle. No, it was the other bits... the part of Ranma that would steal without a thought, if the profit to him was deemed sufficient, would take shameless advantage of any and all of an enemies weaknesses, would find no depths of dirty trickery too far to sink if there was even the flimsiest justification, would happily throw someone else to the wolves to save himself. All the self-serving, hidden parts of himself that left no doubt that he was, indeed, Genma's child. And those parts wanted to live far more than they particularly cared about the lives of others.

"... Yeah." He decided, curtly. "'mean... n'gonna... y'know... kill'm m'self. Not g'n doit. But... y'being s'much stronger'n me right now... s'not much I c'n do 'f you..." he rationalized, uncertainly and squeamishly. "An... 'nafter they're... y'know... _done_... s'not like they'll care, right? Imean.... 'm preeeetty sure they'd f'rgive me. If they weren'.... y'know... dead."

"I guess that's fair enough." Suika agreed, either oblivious to or uncaring of Ranma's moral dilemma. She brightened as a thought seemed to strike her. "And this means I get to ravage you _more_."

Ranma carefully contemplated her phrasing, sobriety seeming to suddenly, if only temporarily, fly in on swift wings.

"Now y'mention 't... what d'you mean by... 'ravage'...?" He asked warily, almost dreading the answer.

"Oni slang." Suika explained briefly, fiddling with something around his legs which, he assumed, was probably a lock of some kind. "It's sort of like 'ravish', but a lot more unnecessarily violent. Though you were pretty banged up, so I went a little easier on you. Why did you _think_ I was suddenly hungry, after enjoying the Tendo hospitality?"

"..." Ranma astutely replied. Now that he thought about it, with the overriding, sharp, stabbing pain of battered internal organs mostly faded away, he had begun to register countless other relatively minor, unexplained aches and pains. Not comforting. On the other hand, not _that_ different from his previous experience regarding relationships with the opposite sex. Confusing, and often painful on his end.

"Waaaaiiit.... does this.... make me a pervert now?" He asked, honestly worried.

"There's two answers to that." Suika explained, irritation clearly coloring her voice as she tossed a pair of locks aside and let his feet loose, moving to his wrists. "A simple one and a simpler one. Simple answer is 'don't worry about it, older than I look, and you don't get a choice anyway'."

Even as he subconsciously realized that that was more than enough, and that pressing further might not be wise, the moment of sobriety had already begun to slip away, and his treacherous mouth opened again.

"Ssso... wha's the simpler answer?"

There was a 'click' as the lock was removed, chains rustling as Ranma dropped face-forward towards the heap of wood and leaves. Suika's foot re-directed him midway, aborting his automatic and by this point very confused and hesitant escape attempt. She grabbed hold of the one chain still attached to him, linked to the sort-of manacle thing she had clipped around his neck immediately upon winning the fight, and used it to swing him around and slam him into the ground, flat on his back, knocking the wind heavily out of him.

"Let me _demonstrate_." She said, using the moment to do something with the chain that secured his wrists in a set of cuffs that he was very sure hadn't been attached to it a moment ago. He was starting to suspect that the chain had some sort of magic to it.

More importantly, as a distinctly and uncomfortably predatory cast fell over Suika's features, he had begun to worry about when, or if, a rescue party was going to arrive from Nerima, and what their reaction would be if.... oh. Oh my. That was...

Under the relentless battering from the alcohol, combined with the new assault, the higher functions of Ranma's mind collectively decided to call it a night, leaving him in a pleasant stupor of sorts and all thought of Nerima... or, really, anything... to be put on hold.

xxx

The gathering of the newly formed Wild Horse Rescue Squad was off to a rocky start, to put it mildly.

"This nonsense is completely pointless." Genma affirmed, crossing his hands over his chest.

"Yes, indeed!" Soun immediately agreed. "Ranma is a perfectly capable young man. I'm sure that he gave that demon a sound thrashing the very _moment_ he awoke and is even now headed back from there."

"Wherever the place he awoke in may be. Also, she literally _just_ beat the tar out of him." Nabiki pointed out. The fathers, naturally, simply laughed off the details and facts as they ambled off in search of the nearest bar.

"RANMA!" Ryoga yelled at the top of his lungs. "How DARE you betray Akane by running off with some demon! I'll-!"

"_Technically_, she kidnapped him." Nabiki pointed out, rubbing at her temples. Ryoga nodded her way at the correction.

"RANMA!" He yelled at the top of his lungs again. "How DARE you betray Akane by allowing some demon to kidnap you! I'll kill you for this!"

Nabiki groaned and just left the room, seeing that she was making no headway and not particularly feeling that she would be any more successful with Akane or the other girls.

"So, you understand the plan, then?" She overheard Mousse say to Kuno as she passed by the door to the room they had sequestered themselves inside, unaware that it was of no assistance whatsoever in hiding their plotting. "After the oni is engaged, we slip past the battle and into its lair, to see if Saotome is still alive. And he won't be, even if he is."

"Verily, such tactics do not become the scion of the house of Kuno. But indeed, such as that sorcerer deserves no better end than secret and ignoble, apparently at the hands of the creature he called forth from the foul netherworlds."

Nabiki frowned but kept walking. Honestly... it was like trying to herd cats. They'd sort-of unite for as long as it seemed to further their personal interests, but the moment it didn't...

"Kasumi!" She said, entering the kitchen. "You know where stuff is. Do we have anything to deal with frustration headaches?"

"Oh my, yes. Just one moment." The elder sister said, bustling through the cupboards and producing three plastic bottles. "Now, this one on the left will alleviate some of the pain for a little while, but not all of it, and it can cause acute nausea and a worse headache later sometimes, I'm afraid. This one in the middle is more powerful, however, you may zone out and find yourself drooling, or simply find significant gaps in your memory later. This one on the right is the best, ridding all of the pain without loss of focus, but if you take them too often then the lovely little blue men in kilts start to come out and perform Riverdance for you."

Nabiki stared for a long moment at the innocuous looking bottles.

"You know what? Forget it. I'm just going to take a nap. I'm washing my hands of this whole mess."

xxx

A.N. Currently 4477 of the minimum 15000 word requirement for Ozz's F4. Definitely not counting end notes. Anyway, cut off here because I hit a slight writers block a little further on, and I thought to myself 'you know, this isn't getting anywhere. How can I figure out how to finish this before the deadline?' And then I answered myself 'you know , the contest requires that the fic be complete when you send the link, not neccessarily when you post the blasted thing. Put it up and see if anyone says anything about it that might nudge you along a bit?'

Following this, I nodded to myself and finished my tea, absently noting that I was rather a stunning conversationalist, and quite clever to boot.

In any case, it should be noted that I'm taking significant, even extreme liberties with the characters here. I'm going to claim it as severe cultural differences for Suika, which I'll probably go into a little bit next chapter, and... for Ranma, he's just a little weird this time, maybe? I'll get back to you on that... OH WAIT, I just thought of something perfect, but telling you would spoil it. So you'll see that later, too.

Not quite sure how to classify this. Some degree of humor, horror, parody, etc.... I'll just take the tried and true 'general' tag. That'll do it.


	2. Chapter 2

The bear was strong, powerful. Master of the mountains in which it dwelt. Other, weaker animals fled before it, rightly fearing that they might become its next meal, though it was disinterested in regularly exerting itself in hunts and chases and so primarily took advantage of its omnivore status to gorge itself on nuts and berries, and the occasional honey-dripping beehive that wouldn't be too much effort to reach. Sometimes, it would barrel out of the woods, roaring at startled picnickers, having long since discovered that people would abandon their food when it decided they didn't need it anymore.

Yes, the bear was king of the jungle in this area, living the good life. As such, the brute was as surprised as an animal can really be when one morning a young man hurled himself, bellowing and wearing nothing but a very tattered, almost irreparably ruined pair of pants, some dirt, and the occasional trace of sauce that Suika had missed, directly out of a tree and into the bear, with enough momentum behind him to bowl it over.

It was, presumably, further surprised when rolling around and slamming into trees did nothing to dislodge the hairless monkey, who was carefully wrestling his way around the bear's body, careful to avoid the fangs and claws that the creature was just as eagerly trying to sink into him. Several minutes passed in the frenzied scuffle between man and beast before Ranma managed to wriggle into the correct position for his purposes and, locking his legs together, began to squeeze and twist with his arms and entire upper body. The bear was fortunate in that its neck broke before Ranma had to resort to simply strangling it to death, and with a great 'whumpf', its lifeless body collapsed to the ground as Ranma tumbled free of it.

After taking a minute to bask in his re-affirmed masculinity, and smirking at the new knowledge that _yes_, he _could_ wrestle a bear to death, he took hold of one limb and began the arduous task of dragging it back to camp, having decided on taking the stance of prevention being better than cure, in that if he kept Suika well-fed and happy at all times, to the best of his ability, the odds of anything... unfortunate happening were lower. Of course, if he was rescued, that would be great and all bets would be off, but for some reason he didn't see anyone in Nerima pulling that off. Maybe, if they all ganged up all at once on Suika, they'd stand a shot... and again, maybe not. No point worrying about it, especially since the fact that there was only _one_ Suika to worry about left the pros and cons of getting away pretty evenly stacked. In some respects, it was like being back on the training trip again, and he was wondering why he hadn't thought of something like this to deal with the fiancee mess long ago. Marry your daughter? Whoops, sorry, have to deal with being taken prisoner by a demon first. Priorities, you understand, right? I'll get back to you later, probably.

In others...

There was the willingness to eat people thing, of course, and she had very forcefully proven that, unlike the fiancees, there was really nothing he could do yet to prevent her from using him in whatever way she saw fit, which was depressing and emasculating... but then, nothing was perfect, and for some reason, away from everyone else he knew and outside of Nerima, he had _yet _to even once have the curse accidentally activate on him. So, it might be a balance of misfortunes sort of thing, and remaining one gender for the longest span he'd had in _months_ left him a good bit more accepting of such quirks. Not totally, or even very much, all things told, but a good bit more than he would have been otherwise.

Idly, he put his thoughts on hold and took momentary pleasure in the fact that, apparently, magic sake didn't cause hangovers, as sunlight reflected off the waters of the gurgling brook he was passing. Doing anything right now would have been_ far_ less pleasant than it currently was, if it had.

Hm. His thoughts had wandered to last night. In all honesty... he was sort of disappointed. Given all the hype about... this and that, he'd really expected something... more, from the experience. Sure, it had been pretty interesting, in a new situations sort of way, but nothing like the incredible, best and most wonderful feeling in the world that Hiroshi and Dai had always hyped up the First Time as being, ignoring that he had technically been unconscious for his first time. It hadn't been much better the second, third, or fourth aware time around, and by the time Suika had kicked him awake an hour or so before sunrise for another round, it was really just something to put up with, more than anything else.

Some squishiness, enough limb twisting and 'love taps' to leave him very slightly battered, finished off with some messiness and the oni rolling off, usually snoring within moments. He was disappointed, to say the least. It was nothing like the adrenaline high of even your average classroom brawl...

And he was distracted from his thoughts as he entered the camp, if a patch of dirt next to an unstarted fire could be called a camp, and Suika dropped from _somewhere_ onto his shoulders. In the same motion, she stuffed the mouthpiece of her magic gourd into his mouth.

"Drink!" She demanded imperiously. Not seeing any other real option, Ranma gave in and took a couple of deep swallows. She retracted the gourd after that and took a deep drag of her own.

"Breakfast?" She wondered, waving absently at the bear corpse.

"... Dinner, more likely." He disagreed, only the slightest slur to his words. "Need to start the fire. And a knife."

He patted himself down for a moment before remembering there was nothing actually in his pockets, and withdrew a small box of emergency matches and a pocketknife. Suika stared for a moment.

"I _know_ you didn't have those on you...." She started, pausing in mid question for another pull of sake.

"Hidden Weapons technique. It's a... folded space pocket of ki or something, I don't really know how to explain it, but it's like having something in your pocket, and having empty pockets at the same time, so that what you want is there when you want it, and not otherwise."

"Neat." Suika said, seeming to have followed the explanation relatively well, despite it making no particular sense. He nodded absently as a small tongue of flame caught and began licking at the wood, put the matches away, and began skinning the bear.

"Heh... This's nothing compared to what the blind duck can do. I can carry about as much as would fit in a small backpack... he can basically pick up a house and everything inside and carry it around with him, nobody the wiser." He frowned as he wiggled the knife through a tricky patch. "Theoretically... so could I, but it would take a lot of dedicated focus and my other skills would get rusty in the meantime."

He set the knife aside for a moment and carefully peeled off the furry hide and tossed it aside, absently wondering if he wanted to go through the effort of curing it. It would be better than packed dirt to sleep on, anyway... He absently blasted a hole in the ground, slit open the bear's belly and let the organs tumble out into a smelly pile.

"Still have that sauce?" He wondered, glancing around until his eyes fell on the small barrel. Grunting, he impaled the bear and set it up above the by now crackling fire.

"Alright! Pants off." Suika demanded, grinning lecherously.

Ranma stiffened up, then sighed.

"Do we have to...?"

"Yes." Suika answered immediately and unambiguously. "We absolutely do. Pants off, or I'll tear them off."

Ranma sighed, and began to dispiritedly fumble at the drawstring of his pants.

"The bear might burn..." He noted.

"It'll be fine." Suika decided, picking him up bodily and moving him to a patch of ground that was slightly softer than the rest, free of roots, pebbles, and antpiles, and by now heavily used, before settng delightedly to work.

Not too terribly long after, she rolled away and chugged at her sake, satisfied for the moment, as Ranma awkwardly pulled his pants back on and began tending to the bear again.

"Hits the spot..." she sighed contentedly. "Hey! When's the food going to be ready?"

"It's a big bear." Ranma deadpanned, slathering sauce over it. "It might take a while...."

He was interrupted by Suika's stomach noisily growling, and sighed, then fished around in his not-pockets for a moment before turning around.

"Here. It's half a sandwich I made a couple.... days... ago..." He said, trailing off into a murmur as he stared absently at Suika, who was squatted next to the organ hole, one hand elbow deep and fishing around, the other holding something that _might_ be a kidney or _might_ be a liver that she had already ripped several large chunks out of with her teeth. ".... But it looks like you've already found breakfast for yourself." He finished, in a slightly strained tone. "I'll just leave this out... eat it later if you want."

He set the sandwich down and turned back to the cooking, doing his best to ignore the squelches, slurps, smacking lip noises, and occasional belches from behind him. It wasn't long before she walked up to inspect the roasting bear, chewing absently on a mouthful of sandwich.

"Please wash your hands and face."

"Squeamish." She grunted, but left after polishing it off, and some muffled splashes from the brook hinted that she had gone ahead and scrubbed off the gore.

"Sooo...." She said, once she returned. "Ready for another round?"

"Not really. Do I have a choice?"

"Not really." She agreed. "I'm doing this for me, not you. Take what pleasure you get from it and be grateful."

"I'm not getting any pleasure from it at all." He countered, fiddling with his drawstring and absently wondering why he'd even bothered. It wasn't until he turned around and saw how still and silent Suika had gotten that he realized how deeply he had goofed.

"Uh... that is...."

"So. What you're saying. It's that you aren't satisfied with my body?" She said slowly, dangerously.

"No, no, no, no, not at all!" He backpedaled furiously. "Your body is wonderful, fantastic even! What I meant was... uh...." He searched futilely for something to say, but found that he had drawn a very unfortunate blank.

"So. What you're saying." She repeated, eyes seeming to spark with building fury. "Is that my _technique_ is no good for you?"

"No, no, no, no, not at all!" He insisted. "I mean... it's good? I just don't enjoy it...?" He finished feebly, realizing that he had dug himself a hole that there would be no easy escape from.

Suika slowly exhaled a long, deep breath, rolling her neck and cracking her knuckles with a series of dull pops.

"Alright then." She said flatly. "I guess I have been keeping it pretty vanilla. Teach me to go easy while breaking you in. So. This time... I'll be going full out. _You're going to enjoy this if it kills you!_"

xxx

In the end, the bear burned. By that point, however, neither of them particularly cared.

Suika had worked him over for most of the day. At the end of it, he had taken a laundry list of injuries. Both shoulders had been dislocated, one twice, his ribs had been cracked in several places, his legs were cramped enough to temporarily be near useless, the muscles of and around his hips had been pulled and strained painfully, he was heavily bruised around and beneath the neck manacle, Suika had bitten in a handful of places deeply enough to draw blood, and had left long, deep scratches with her fingernails just about everywhere she could reach, and had used a fire-heated stick on him in all manner of imaginative ways. At the same time, she had raised him, over and over, just _almost_ to the peak of ecstasy before moving away and letting it fade and then raising it again, until the final peak, a crescendo of conflicting pleasure and the most exquisite torment.

The average person would have found it nothing less than simple torture, and been broken through it. Ranma had never been considered average, and had since the earliest days of his youth been taught that everything enjoyable would hurt, beginning with his martial arts and fatherly affection shown with deliberately hurtful words, continued until the introduction of an arranged marriage, something he hadn't known exactly how to deal with until Akane had slammed the table into his head. By this point it was a psychological link. Many of Ranma's senses of pleasure were particularly dull and stunted, _unless_ they were accompanied by a near-equal amount of pain.

What he had just gone through, then, had left Hiroshi and Daisuke's explanations as far behind in the dust as those explanations had left what had seemed to be the reality of the experience. If Ranma had been in the shape to put a word to it, it would have been something along the lines of 'transcendent'.

"Wooooow......." He gurgled through a goofy, bloody grin and glazed eyes.

"'S bett'r." Suika remarked through a mouthful of bear before swallowing. "Weren't bad yourself, once you started to really get into it." She admitted. At some point along the way, something in Ranma's head had switched on, and he had given back much of what he had gotten. Suika had responded by redoubling her own efforts, and things had escalated from there, slightly blurring the line as to who, exactly, was ravaging whom, despite the fact that she was so much physically tougher and stronger than he was that for most of it he might as well have been hitting her with a feather. it was the thought that counted, after all. And trying to bite through her lip when she had leaned down to leer in his face had been a masterstroke, almost worthy of Oni.

"Can you move?" She wondered aloud, prompting Ranma to frown as he considered just that question, the afterglow having begun to slowly fade. There was a pair of popping noises as he re-located his shoulders, followed by a few longer moments of silence.

".... No." He eventually answered. "Not yet, anyway. And I think a couple of my tendons might have torn, so it might be a while before I can. Not till tomorrow morning at least."

"Shame. Bear's not bad."

There was a long patch of silence, broken by Ranma's stomach, after which Suika grunted, rose, and drug him back next to the fire by his hair. She took another bite of bear and chewed thoroughly, then leaned down. After a moment, she moved her head back away and Ranma swallowed.

"I..." He started, before hesitating. 'Can chew by myself' was what he'd intended to say next, but something about the way how Suika had rested his head on her lap, in easy crushing reach, and was deliberately not meeting his eyes as she ate suggested that he should very seriously rethink his words. "... Thanks." He decided on, instead.

"Don't mention it. To anyone. Ever." Suika replied, tearing off another chunk of bear with her teeth. After a moment she leaned down again.

Several further hours were spent this way, in silence, as the sun slowly lowered, and most of the bear disappeared, washed down with Suika's magic sake.

"So... wher'ere y' plan on goin', af'the Tendo's, if I hadn' come straaight back fr'm school?" Ranma wondered aloud, drowsily and drunk.

"Hm. Gensokyo." Suika answered.

"Nev' heard of't. Course... lotsa places I'd nev' heard of..."

"I'd have been surprised if you had. It's not someplace that's easy to get to."

"Shoulda guessed. Still gong?" He slurred.

"Yeah."

"Hrm. Mind...." He paused and yawned absently before continuing. "Mind waitin' a li'l while, 'fore starting off? Have'ta... gif th' fiancee's an' all at least a teeeny li'l chance to rescue me 'tleast."

Suika's fingers tightened in his hair, unnoticed.

"Why?" She wondered, sharply.

"Whyyy...?" Ranma wondered right back. "'S'th....way 'tworks, righ'...? St'ries... al's happ'ns. Some rescues work... some don'. Somt'ms th' rescuee'sb'n eaten. But's al's 'tleast one try."

"...Stories." Suika grumbled. "This isn't a story. What if I've decided that I want to keep you?"

"Nev' s'id tho'ght they'd pull't off. Jus'they had t'getta shot."

Suika took a long, deep pull from her gourd, thinking to herself.

"What's a 'fiancee'?" She asked, instead of anything else she might have said.

"Hm? 'S'a... 'sa word, thing... means p'ple wh're boun't'get married'n become husband 'n wife. Wifey-wife. Got's fiancee's y'know." Ranma said, as though confiding a deep secret that he hadn't already revealed not long before. "Di'n wann'm. Pops' doin'. Jes' one day out'th blue, 'ge'readdy t'meetcher new wife-t'be, boy'. Tri't'run, but got me w'sign t'th'back'th head. Hurt. 'n th'n ucchan turn't outt' be girl, an chinese n' rose girls, n'... " He trailed off into incomprehensible drunken grumbles.

"Huh. So... what are a husband and wife?" Suika wondered again.

"Mm.... s'like... two p'ples th' get t'gether, liv'n, sleep'n, hav'n kids. On'spusst'be two. Pops'a idit."

"Oh. Something like that, huh." Suika said, deciding to save further questions for a time when the other half of the conversational equation would be more coherent. "So.... were they anything like as good as me?"

Ranma chuckled sleepily at the question.

"D'nno. Doin' tha'... be like pick'n t'at'n. Catch all kind' hell fr'm o'th'ree. Nev'risk'd it."

"Then I was your _first_?" Suika remarked, clearly emphasizing a sense of 'predatory leer' with every word. "Hm! If I'd known, I'd have made it sp-e-cial."

"Gess bett'r?" Ranma murmured softly, clearly on the verge of sleep.

"You'll just have to wait and find out."

Suika glanced over to the moonrise, taking another deep drink as she did.

"Oni don't have 'fiancees' or 'husbands' or 'wives'." she remarked. "We have 'special victims' and 'regular victims' and 'favorite victims'."

"S'nice." Ranma murmured, as his eyes closed.

"Isn't it." Suika said dryly. She took one final pull from the gourd and settled herself down fully on the ground, watching the stars as her eyes slowly drifted shut.

xxx

A.N. This chapter was 3099, so... in total so far, 7576 of 15000 words. Halfway-ish point. I might just finish this yet.

I am astonished at how my plot points got called in reviews. Well, some of them, anyway. To the guy who suggested that Ranma had M tendencies... Oh yeah. I took that idea, cranked it up to eleven, and _ran_ with it, completely rewriting this chapter from dragging the bear back onwards. One hundred percent improvement, I think. In the end, it wasn't _entirely_ M.... just really, _really_ violent. They bonded. Waff, etc.

Also, Ranma as **DOMESTIC MAN, da da da daaaah. He is a REAL MAN. He doesn't cook WAFFLES or PANCAKES with SYRUP and BERRIES for BREAKFAST, like a PANSY. He goes out AT DAWN and WRESTLES BEARS and BREAKS THEIR NECKS so he can CARVE THEM UP and COOK THEM OVER A CAMPFIRE.**

**Suika is fine with this.**

Aaand anything else, oh right! In case you couldn't guess from the end of this chapter, this is set BEFORE IaMP. Important! Anything that involves the duo after they get into Gensokyo will be Another. Story. Entirely. Juuust making that clear.

COMPLETELY UNRELATED NOTE, how does one get mentioned on TvTropes? (Future goal hint) We all need something to aim for.


	3. Chapter 3

Ranma woke up with the sort of stiff soreness throughout the vast majority of his body that would have left lesser men whimpering like kicked puppies. For him, however, it was less of an overriding agony and more of a 'must be Tuesday again' sensation, and did nothing to evade Suika's wake-up ravaging. By this point, he was fairly sure that not even the entire removal of multiple of his limbs would be enough to put the oni's slaking of her carnal desires on hold.

On the plus side, it had proven wonderful for getting the blood flowing to partially numb limbs, and he'd been up and moving about shortly afterwards to work of the lingering ache.

Suika had, naturally gone back to sleep. This was actually a good thing, as during the night some scavenger that had been brave enough to enter the camp, and smart enough not to wake them in doing it, had made off with the remnants of the bear, hide, organs, and all. Her continued sleep left him enough time to snatch a scattered variety of small fish from the brook nearby, privately thank Cologne for the foresight of the multipurpose chestnut speed technique, and get enough of a fire going again to cook them on as a substitute for the leftover bear.

A large, circular jog around the camp didn't turn up any hints about where the scavenger might have gotten to. It _did_, however, turn up signs of a boar passing through the area overnight, which decided his morning pursuits after he returned and ate his half of the fish.

After hunting it down and dragging it back to camp, Suika dropped out of somewhere and onto his shoulders.

"Are you going to make a habit of this?" He wondered dryly, and was answered with an immediate 'Drink!'. He did, and wondered when he would notice any increase in his alcohol tolerance, before remembering that this was _magic_ sake and, therefore, didn't neccessarily have to play by normal rules.

Setting that aside, he had barely set the tip of his knife to the boars skin when he was interrupted by a low rumble of thunder. He immediately stood and scanned the horizon, not taking long to locate a slowly spreading dark cloud.

"Shit." He stated eloquently, remembering just in time to loosen his grip on the knife before the grip splintered in his hand. Wasn't that just typical... And he'd been enjoying maleness, too. It wasn't like he had expected to be able to avoid the change forever, but after taking such care to avoid accidental splashes, the building stormcloud seemed like it was nature itself going well out of its way to screw him over.

"Huh... Looks like it's going to rain." Suika noted blandly.

"We'll need to move to some form of shelter." Ranma said.

"Not really. Just a little water."

"... It looks like more than a 'little'. If I'm out in that for too long, I'll catch sick, and sick people are no fun to be around." Ranma said, evading talk of his little water issues for the moment to focus on reasons that the oni would more likely appreciate. "And the fire will go out in the rain."

"And then the meat won't cook. I see. I guess we need to move to some form of shelter, then." Suika decided, and dispersed into mist, flowing out between the trees. After a few minutes, she coalesced into one spot again. "There's a creepy shack that way, a big house that it doesn't look like anyone lives in over that way, a big hole in a small hill that way, and an out of the way shrine with a tiny, shriveled priest waay over there."

"I have serious concerns about these places." Ranma deadpanned. "Judging by past experience... the big house is haunted by the spirits of vengeful dead prostitutes from a brothel that burned down on that patch of land hundreds of years ago, a serial murderer is squatting in the shack and trying to figure out his next target, the hill will collapse from the rain and bury us alive in our sleep, and the priest is an S-class pervert that will try to make us pay for the shelter with our bodies. Yeah, that seems like it would be about par for the course."

"Yeah, okay. So which is it gonna be?" Suika asked, and Ranma spent a moment considering it.

"... You already fill my sex-fiend toleration quota, so the shrine is out. My clothes are in bad enough condition, no need to cake them with mud too. Ghosts are hard to hit, so that could be a problem... I guess it'll be the murderer's shack, then."

"Alright!"

Without a further word, Suika took hold of Ranma's chain and the boar, and the group dispersed. Ranma realized that he had probably experienced this mode of travel at least once, upon being taken from the Tendo household, but knowing that did nothing to prepare him for the actual experience. If he had to describe it in words, it was... well, it was like his body had come apart at small enough fragments to become mist, there was really no better explanation. It was unexpectedly completely painless, and the only sense that really seemed to be impaired by it was 'touch'.

In many ways, that made it quite a head-trip. Every part of him had become fundamentally identical, or rather, any given patch of mist could have eyes, nose, tongue, or spleen in it, or all of the above. As such, he saw everything within the area he had spread over, and in every direction outwards from it, similarly he heard, smelt, tasted...

It was disorienting to an unbelievable degree, and he couldn't imagine doing this sort of thing regularly. As Suika reformed them at the target destination, completely unruffled from the trip, Ranma dropped to his knees, clutching at his head, where a splitting, pounding, stabbing and throbbing agony had set in from the sensory overload.

"Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow." He grumbled softly through grit teeth.

"Does take a bit of getting used to." Suika said absently. "Could have been worse, though. Before I got the hang of it, I kept putting heads back on backwards and arms and legs in the wrong places."

"_Thank you_ for that pleasant mental image." Ranma groused "Just a second, I have to do something real quick."

He stood and walked to the door of the shack, hesitating only a moment before it. Then, instead of reaching for the doorknob, he punched directly through the wood and, as Suika watched casually, ripped a large man in a blood-spattered hockey mask out of the shack. The man immediately pulled the cord on the small, rusty chainsaw he was clutching, only for Ranma to kick it out of his hands and into pieces. He followed this up by grabbing hold of the man's head and smashing it into his knee multiple times, leaving several prominent cracks in the mask. Heaving a deep breath, Ranma flipped the man around and onto the ground, where he lay still and unconscious.

"I'd like to note that I _totally_ called it."

"You totally did!" Suika said, agreeably. "Hey... can you cook that?"

Ranma hesitated, but his splitting headache and lack of sympathy for Mr. Bloody Chainsaw quickly got the better of him.

"Sure, why not." He said blandly as he opened what was left of the door and stepped into the shack, ignoring the sickening crack of bone from behind him.

Wasn't much to look at inside... sink, some cupboards, a stove and oven, though a quick check proved these to be nonfunctional, and a bed with a large chest at the foot. He opened it, expecting and hoping for spare clothes, but was instead greeted with the deceased chainsaw-man's extensive, and horrific, collection of preserved faces and genitalia. He immediately closed the chest back up, any lingering doubts about Suika's dinner plan firmly quashed, and decided that he would be hauling it outside to blast into dust later.

Thankfully for his sanity, the cupboards were more normally stocked, with some canned food, books, dishes and cookware, silverware and some few spices, a disturbingly large collection of kitchen knives. And three hand grenades, which Ranma decided for the moment to pretend he hadn't seen at all.

He took the biggest and heaviest knife and dragged the chest outside, where Suika had built a crude roofed enclosure and walkway to the door to keep the rain off of two firepits, all of which she had somehow created in the span of time that he had been inside. Out of what looked like solid stone. He didn't even bother asking, or thinking particularly long about the fact that if she could have done that at any time, she could have just built something right in the clearing.

"Sake?" She offered. "Helps the headache."

Ranma was dubious, but discovered that it did. It _really_ did. In a much more cheerful mood, he tested the edge of the kitchen knife and found it acceptable.

"Keep in mind, I'm _not_ eating this guy." He said as he set to work. "He's all yours."

xxx

The rain was an obstacle to the search, but had been alleviated when Nabiki had provided waterproof, hooded coats of some sort, which kept the rain off and prevented the change. It was still a frustrating endeavor, because the Oni had quite simply left no trail of any sort to follow in between points A and B.

It had seemed like the hunt would turn up fruitless until Ukyou had reported back from a search that, around midday, one of the magic 'Ranma-sensing' trinkets that Cologne had given out after smacking some heads and taking control had gone completely haywire as she passed through a patch of woods, and she had located a recently abandoned camp. As per usual for this chase, there was no trail to follow from there, or even any hint of how or exactly when the oni had left.

Essentially, it was the same as not finding anything at all, but it lifted morale somewhat, and the fiancees found themselves staying at it for longer than before, after the rivals had called it quits for the day. Shampoo, in particular, had stayed at it the longest, not having any pressing obligations in the way of studies, and not having to be at the restaurant if she had something more important to do.

As the tiny trinket went absolutely nuts, she was glad that she had.

She dropped out of a tree, slightly glad that there was nobody around to see her slightly awkward landing in the mud, and walked through the rain to the shack. Something had been cooked outside... whatever it had been, the scent was reminding her that she had skipped dinner, and it had long since gotten dark. She passed by and walked up to the door, which looked like it had been smashed apart and then pieced back together. She kicked it open boldly.

"AIREN! Shampoo come to-KYAAA!" She started to say, trailing off into a shrill scream.

Ranma looked up from what he was reading for a moment.

"Oh, Shampoo. Hey." He said blandly, turning the page. "What're you screaming at?"

"What _not_ to scream at!?" Shampoo countered immediately. "Ranma _naked_, there is person _half-eaten_ on floor-"

"It's fine, it's fine. I didn't do any of the eating." Ranma said, having rapidly become jaded.

"Just because Ranma not eat, not make it fine!" Shampoo insisted. "Little demon _also_ naked, and... and... with _airen_, and is _not listening to Shampoo_!"

"I'm _-ah-_ listening. Just don't _-mn-_ feel like stopping. Go ahead and talk."

Shampoo let loose a wordless howl of rage, and withdrew her bonbori. She took one step towards the offensive, then froze as Suika's eyes focused directly on her, as though she were something small and fuzzy that had suddenly found itself in front of a half awake predator, trying to decide whether or not the mouthful would be worth the effort of getting up. She broke out in a cold sweat, every natural impulse screaming 'Danger, Danger, Danger', but refused to simply crack and turn tail to flee. Her pride wouldn't survive the hit.

"Ah! This recipe... it looks interesting, and I haven't tried it before." Ranma said, having not paid the slightest bit of attention to the interplay. "Shampoo, do you know somewhere to get vegetables?"

".... Morino, at 43 Honda, have. Very fresh."

"Really? I suppose he'll want money, though." He said absently, turning the page, completely unaware that he had utterly destroyed all of the room's built-up tension. Suika punched him in the diaphragm, irritation showing.

"_Anyway_... I'll give you all one free shot at rescuing this one." Suika said, trying to regain the shattered atmosphere. "But only one. Once an attack is repelled, I'm gone from here... and taking this one with me. As Ibuki clan, I don't easily let go of my toys."

"Little demon assume Shampoo will fail." She grumbled darkly.

"Ah... but I'm a lot stronger than this one was. Can you win against him?"

"Have good point..." Shampoo growled. "But be easier for Shampoo to take little demon serious if _stop moving hips while talking_."

"..... That sounds like a personal problem to me." Suika replied, still in full motion. Shampoo hissed in disgust and turned.

"Airen... Shampoo be back, soon. Must prepare... but Shampoo rescue airen!"

"Don't worry, take your time." He advised, not looking up from the cookbook for a moment. "Seriously, I'm in no rsh-"

Suika's hand had clamped down on his jaw.

"Why don't you... shut up and _focus_ on the matter at hand!" She said, hurling the book across the room and leaning down towards him.

Shampoo froze, turned around, and calmly filled a cup of water from the sink and drank it slowly. She refilled it and turned.

"Shampoo think... little demon and airen should _cool off_." She yelled, splashing the two of them with the water. Suika froze for a moment as she considered the new situation, then reached down casually.

"Huh. A girl..." She said, consideringly.

"Just so you know, you never actually asked if I happened to switch gender sometimes-" Ranma started to explain.

"... Is fine too." She finished, interrupting the conversation and resuming what she had been doing in the same breath.

"Hey, wha.... oh!" was all Ranma managed to say in response.

Shampoo's retreat was sped by the sounds of wanton debauchery, and her own bitter tears of shame and failure.

xxx

"I had no idea... that two girls could..."

"Live and learn." Suika said, taking a drink. "But seriously, you never... experimented, on your own?"

"I didn't have any inclination towards that sort of thing, in either body." Ranma answered. "Aside from that, just having a curse like this was perverted enough... taking advantage of it like that, if I got caught, would be enough to have me disowned, executed, and banned from my martial style, for fear of me turning to Grandmaster Happosai's side. Just not worth that sort of hassle."

"You humans are weird." Suika decided, taking a bite out of the leftover chainsaw-guy.

"That's your point of view." Ranma allowed, wondering if the water she'd set out to heat by the re-kindled fire was ready yet. "By the way, I thought of something a little while ago. How long does the sake from that gourd hang around?"

He was answered with a blank stare.

"As long as it takes me to drink it." Suika said slowly, as though explaining something to a very small child.

"Uh, yeah.... but if you didn't drink it, just poured it and left it sitting out, how long would it...."

Ranma fumbled to a halt under the uncomprehending blank stare, then sighed and fished a cup out from one of the cupboards.

"Alright, pour some sake into this, then." He said, setting it

Suika agreeably did so, and then immediately knocked it back before Ranma could say anything further.

"That wasn't what..." Ranma said awkwardly, under Suika's curious stare. "Okay... let's try this again. Pour some sake into this cup."

Suika shrugged, not seeing the point, but did so. She would have then once more immediately chugged it, except that Ranma had snatched the cup away before she could.

"Hey! Rude. You could have asked, and I would have let you drink some." Suika grumbled.

"Yes... but this isn't for drinking." Ranma said, setting it on a counter and leaving it.

".... I don't get what you're saying." Suika admitted. "It's sake... sake is for drinking."

"Er, yeah... how should I put this?" Ranma wondered aloud, idly yanking the cup away from a grasping hand. "Alright, you know how that's a magic gourd, that never runs out of sake that doesn't give you hangovers."

"Yes, obviously." Suika said, making another dodged swipe for the cup.

"Okay, so if you pour it out, it's still sake, and it will never stop pouring because it's always full."

Suika nodded distractedly, frowning at the cup that Ranma kept moving out of her reach.

"So... I was just wondering, given that this is essentially magic sake, if it was left on its own and not drunk, would it just disappear on its own or anything?"

"You've lost me." Suika said, making another swipe for the cup. "Look, are you going to drink that or not?"

"No, and I _just_ explained why. Look, spices and food costs money if you aren't going to just settle for whatever you can hunt or forage, right?"

"Yeeaaah...." Suika said, making another, more irritated grab at the cup.

"So if you want me to cook better stuff for you, I need to have money to pay for it."

"Okay.... so....?"

"So if the sake sticks around for any reasonable timeframe, we can sell it. For money. To buy stuff with." Ranma said, starting to get somewhat irritated by this point as well.

Suika froze in place as she computed that.

"But I don't want to sell it. I want to drink it." She grumbled. "If I sell it, then I can't drink it."

"You can sell it _and_ drink it." Ranma countered.

"I can't drink what I sell away!" Suika barked back. "And I want to drink it _all_!"

"Look, it doesn't _matter_ because you'll _never run out of sake_."

"It's the _principle_ of the thing! Now, if you don't drink that sake _right now_, I'm going to take it from you and drink it _myself_!"

"You can try!" Ranma said, eyes narrowing as she slammed the cup down onto the counter almost hard enough to crack the glass.

Suika hurled herself at Ranma with a wordless roar, tackling her to the ground and tried to push off for a further leap towards the sake cup. She got halfway there before Ranma's hand latched around one of her ankles and pulled, slamming her around through a flimsy cupboard, sending flatware spilling out onto the floor, and hurling her through the far wall and outside, into the mud, where the rain had slackened into a thin drizzle.

Ranma leapt out through the hole immediately, and was met in mid-arc by a howling, thrashing little demon. The battle rapidly descended into a flurry of elbows and knees, hair pulling, biting, scratching, and assorted dirty blows. It didn't take terribly long for Suika to get sidetracked from the original purpose of the scuffle. As Ranma reflected much later, in a collapsed heap of entangled limbs, caked with mud and blood beneath the slow sunrise, there were some good and some bad things about that.

"My boy, I _am_ impressed." came an unfortunately familiar voice from the nearby trees. "And all this time I'd thought something that idiot Genma had done somewhere along the way had accidentally left you impotent. Why, I've never been so _proud_ to have been proven wrong!"

Ranma twitched, and would have moved to cover her modesty, except that it would do little more than the mud already did, and the fact that she wasn't really sure she could actually move.

"Who are you?" Suika wondered aloud, in the same state as Ranma, more or less, and still making no effort to conceal anything. Oni probably had no nudity taboo, Ranma decided. Or shame.

"Why, my dear, I am Happosai!" The little man said, hopping down from the trees, tucking away something that Ranma very much suspected was a camera of some sort. "And may I say that it is a _pleasure_ to meet you?"

"... You're the pervert Ranma was talking about earlier, the grandmaster!" Suika said, putting two and two together.

"I have been called that, yes." Happosai said. "Ah, but can you blame an old man in the twilight hours of his lifetime for enjoying the pleasures that life can bring?"

"_How long have you been watching?_" Ranma hissed dangerously.

"Hm... how long? If I had to say... probably about when... no, that wasn't it. Just a moment." Happosai pulled out a video recorder and began fiddling with it, much to Ranma's dismay. "Hm... ah, yes! It was just shortly before you tried to bite off the Oni's ear, here, you see?" He said, flipping the machine around to display the small screen, where the incident in question was displayed in full color and sound.

".... I have _never_ wanted to kill you as much as I do right now, Happosai." Ranma growled darkly.

"Oho! Then why don't you get up and do something about it, my boy?"

"Because both my hips are dislocated and I think my knees are broken." Ranma answered matter-of-factly, calling a halt to Happosai's teasing.

"Hrm.... yes, I suppose that would put a damper on business as usual." The old man admitted. "In any case, it would probably interest you to know-"

"You aren't human." Suika interrupted, staring pointedly at the old man.

".... No. No I'm not." He grumbled. "I became a youkai a long time ago, of my own volition. Can this wait? I was about to say something important."

"Sure, no rush."

"Thank you, my dear. As I was saying, it would probably interest you to know that Cologne is organizing a rescue attempt for noon tomorrow."

"How nice of you to tell us, old man. So, are you getting involved?"

"Not at all, my boy! Personally, I think this situation is better for you. You're getting laid regularly, after all." Happosai said crudely. "Far be it from me to obstruct the youth's enjoyment of carnal pleasure."

"You'd much rather peep on the act, right?" Ranma said dryly.

"Guilty as charged, my boy! But don't worry.... I'm not Nabiki. All of my recordings and photographs are for my personal use only."

"That _doesn't_ help." Ranma barked, as Suika stood and stretched.

"So, plenty of time between now and then. I think I'll get a drink." She said, heading into the shack. Taking advantage of her absence, Happosai stepped closer and leaned in.

"Ranma, my boy." He said, softly and seriously. "Cologne is preparing a secret weapon for the rescue. Left alone... there's no way that the oni can win."

"... So why are you telling me this?" Ranma asked.

Happosai chuckled.

"Because I think you should know. In the end... it comes down to you. If you want to be rescued... then just keep out of things. She'll be defeated, and inside a week it will be as though none of this had ever happened in the first place. Back to square one. Of course, if you get involved... that'll have repurcussions all of its own."

"Get out of my face, old man." Ranma spat.

"Heh. I figured you'd say-"

"HEY!" Suika barked, coming out the door. "No touching! Watching, whatever, but if you want to play with my toys you have to go through ME, got it?"

"Of course." Happosai responded, drawing away. "Then again, I don't really even _have_ to touch anything. Just being in this place, so soon after your frenzied exertions... any hundred of my silky darlings couldn't even compare."

"Good for you. 'Cause if you _do_ touch anything without permission... I'll eat you."

"Duly noted, my dear." Happosai said blandly, taking another step away from Ranma, hands carefully placed in his pockets.

"... Hey, Suika." Ranma said, postponing thought of the rescue attempt to come aside for a minute. "Was that cup still there?"

"Yeah. I drank it." She said immediately. "You have a problem with that?"

".... No, that's fine. I've already figured out what I needed to know."

xxx

A.N. Lessee.... 4121.... and total 11697 of 15000. Looks like the next chapter will be it for this story until the sequel, folks!

**OOC-Ranma**: Headache... cramped toes... dehydrated... dislocated hips.... fractured pelvis... heavy bruising... broken kneecaps... and a sprained wrist. _JUST AS PLANNED!_

Hm, what else can I make note of?

Ranma was correct about all of the places. See, what I actually did was take them, half form a plot with that in mind, and roll a d4. It came up on the shack, so that was what I went with. I might later cut this story apart and put it on an Addventure thread to see what happens if someone takes another path, though. Anyway, story explanation, he's just gotten that good about predicting what will happen next, given that I'm going to say this is post-Saffron. Genre-savvy to himself, or something? Or maybe just pessimism in action?

Jason- And I was trying so _hard_ to avoid any other crosses, too! Still, I guess he's more like a cameo, so he doesn't really count?

Suika- A Girl Is Fine Too. 'Nuff said. Also, obsessive alcoholic. I re-read some bits of Guardian involving Seras Tuko in order to draw inspiration for that scene, I'll admit it.

Happosai- he's a youkai. Something something, lust, panties, you know? He looks like a shriveled old man because he _was_ a shriveled old man when he became a youkai, and he hasn't as yet really bothered to find a way to change his apparent age. Also, if he was still human, he would have died when he was sealed into that hole into the ground, but being a youkai he could survive off of the energy from his secret panty-stash and hibernate until he was released, nicely semi-tying this to canon.

The secret weapon should be obvious, so I'm not even going to say what it is.


	4. Chapter 4

Suika stood dispassionately above a mangled, twisted corpse. There was no clear detail present to determine the nature of it... whether male or female, the color of its skin or eyes or hair... it had been destroyed almost beyond recognition. The only thing that could be said with full certainty was that it had once been a human, before it had had the misfortune to draw the eyes of...

".... You've broken another one, father." She noted coolly.

"... So I have." Replied a much larger, muscular oni, with gilded horns and clad only in a tiger-fur skirt and tattoos, as was traditional for his position. He reached down and callously tore a chunk of flesh free and ate of it, deep in solemn thought.

This was not particularly unusual. As the strongest oni, the king had little time or attention to spare for just one more daughter who was neither strong enough to wrest the throne from him, nor of an age or shapeliness to grace his bedchambers.

"Wouldn't it be smarter to keep one toy for as long as it can be made to last?" Suika asked warily.

The casual, imperious backhand in lieu of an answer was not at all unexpected, but like any weaker oni confronted with one more powerful, she had long since learned to roll with the blow. As she came up to her feet again, the king turned and spoke, voice and body melting away to form that of another.

"Listen, Suika... that's just how it is, right? Humans are so fragile, and they live such short lives... they aren't like youkai, that you can keep."

Suika squinted, trying in vain to make out the fuzzy features of the other oni, only really able to force a single red horn into view, not particularly cutting down the possible speakers.

"Oni hearts aren't made of stone or ice, but passionate fire trapped in glass. So no matter what... more than anything else... you must _never_ allow yourself to get attached to a human you take. Because in the end, they'll leave you behind, and there's no easy or reasonable way to prevent that from happening. Better to take what enjoyment you can, and then break your toys before they can grab hold of your heart, right? Let's have a drink, then... I've made something special for your birthing day feast."

"Yes, Yuugi." She said, looking down to a set table, where Yuugi had set down a large, covered dish. She lifted the lid, and Ranma tumbled out, eyes wide and completely limp, steaming and painted with sauce.

"Hey." His voice echoed, though his face was still. "I... don't suppose you would consider _not_ eating me?"

"You have to break your toys, Suika." Yuugi said genially, nudging her forward, stumbling slightly.

"Toys are made to be broken." the oni king agreed, reaching down and taking hold of an arm and a leg with one meaty fist each.

"Break the toy, or break your heart." he said somberly, Ranma hanging limply between his fists.

He pulled sharply, and Ranma erupted into a cascade of pouring steaks and chops and roasts and meat-buns, tumbling down to fill the table as wine was wrung from his flesh into a bowl and his head popped loose with one twitch of the oni king's thumb, spiraling through the air and leaving a trail of sausages behind it as it flew. It landed on the ground, bounced twice, and came to a rolling stop in front of her.

"That could have gone better." the head spoke wryly, pouting.

Suika sat up in the bed, eyes open, breathing heavily and suddenly wide awake. Ranma was sleeping soundly beside her, undisturbed. She hesitated, then reached out and past him, taking hold of her gourd. She drank deeply of the sake within, then leaned back and stared vacantly at the ceiling.

xxx

When Ranma woke, he found that he had been chained spread eagled to the bed, face up.

"What... this again?" He mumbled sleepily.

"Nah. Just making sure you're out of the way for the fight." Suika replied.

"Wait, _what_?"

"You know. The kidnapped princess's only job is to be rescued, and all that."

"I'm not a-!... tch." Ranma grumbled as Suika left, ignoring his complaints outright. As he stared at the ceiling, a fly buzzed in and landed, _of course_, directly on the tip of his nose.

Outside, the hours passed as Suika sat still and watched the sun crawl across the sky, until it reached the highest point of its arc. It wasn't long after that three young women and a shriveled crone appeared before her.

"So... you've finally arrived. I've been waiting."

Suika stood and cracked her knuckles, icily staring them down.

"We're here to retrieve my son-in-law. But then, you're already aware of that, I'm sure."

"Of course. Do you think that you can?"

"That's what we'll find out." Cologne said. "But... I think we have a hefty advantage."

Wordlessly, the fiancees reached into their pockets and withdrew handfuls of roasted soybeans.

"... You know oni weaknesses." Suika said dryly. "And? Do you think that's it? I'm Ibuki clan... I've said this before, but we don't give up our toys easily."

"Hmph. If the mere presence of a threat was enough to drive you off, it wouldn't even be worth my time. Attack!"

The battle was at a sort of gridlocked stalemate from the beginning. Being an oni, the merest touch of the beans would burn like nothing else in the world could manage, for disputed reasons, and so she was eager to avoid contact with them. Dispersing would just make her a bigger target, and so was out, but she was more than fast enough to dodge between the hurled beans without touching them. At the same time, though, she couldn't close into melee range without being hit with a fistful of beans all at once. She was weighing the options of breaking out the fun stuff, as she was slowly herded away from the door to the shack, when it happened.

xxx

Ranma wasn't particularly surprised when the trio entered through the back way. Tatewaki let loose a sneer of disgust at the surroundings, while the other two were rather more sedate. Ryoga hung back, turning his head to the side, while Mousse and Kuno stepped forward.

"You guys.... can't say I'm surprised. So, what is this? Rescue?"

Wordlessly, Kuno drew the katana from his side and plunged it through Ranma's torso and the bedframe in a single downward thrust.

"Guess not..." Ranma said wryly, after hacking up a little blood. "... can't say I'm surprised."

"What sinister, foul deviltry is this?" Kuno gasped. "Verily, have I not struck down the foul sorceror, and yet his blighted existence lingers on?"

"You missed his vitals. I hate to say it, but a martial artist of his caliber isn't going to kick it from just that."

Mousse's glasses flashed as he withdrew a pair of daggers from his sleeves.

"Don't worry... he's not going anywhere."

Ranma chuckled darkly.

"So this is how it is. After all this time...you three are actually making a serious try at this? You too, Ryouga?"

"... Sorry, Ranma." He said. "It's just, with you around.... we can never be happy together!" He wailed.

"Yeah, I get it. So, no mercy this time, huh? After all we've been through?"

"As long as you live... Shampoo can have no other husband." Mousse agreed.

"Spare the prattle!" Kuno barked. "My beloveds eagerly await their freedom from this foul sorcerer's binding magics, that they might leap into my arms as they so desire. Let it be finished, and us gone!"

"I guess that's how it is, then." Ranma said, shrugging as best he could while impaled and chained to a bed. "But you know... you guys are really mistaken about just who it is that has the advantage, here."

Ranma jerked his hand, energy gathering as he fired off a ki-blast. It flew, and before any of the rivals could say anything, like a sarcastic 'you missed', or to note that he couldn't have properly aimed at any of them anyway, it slammed directly into its target. The cupboard that held three live hand-grenades.

xxx

With a resounding boom, the shack exploded in a gout of flames and concussive force, blasting wood upwards and outwards in every direction. Kuno had the good fortune to have been launched in an almost vertical arc and came down to bury himself headfirst and to his knees between Suika and the fiancees. Ryouga and Mousse had less luck, and their arc launched them in different directions, well away from the area. The odds of either of them making it back to the battlefield in time to assist with anything were slim, and the odds of both managing the feat approached zero.

Shampoo, taking advantage of her warrior training, forcibly didn't think about the sudden explosion as the other fiancees and Suika turned to stare at the inferno, instead taking the opportunity to hurl another handful of beans. Rather than dodging, Suika's arm blurred, and suddenly she was holding them all. Her face was strangely blank and vacant, despite the thin trails of smoke that almost immediately began to waft upwards from her hand.

Ranma walked slowly, almost nonchalantly through what was left of the doorway, hands in what was left of his pants pockets, chains dragging behind him, and the sword Kuno had stuck in him still in place. Suika's arm twitched, and the beans in her fist were suddenly a pulpy mass of goo, dripping to the ground. Her facial expression didn't budge in the slightest as she let the mess fall.

Without so much as a grunt, Ranma pulled the sword free, and eyed the bloodstained metal for a long moment before tossing it to the ground, returning his hand to his pocket.

"So..." He said dryly. "Remind me, old ghoul... was this whole thing supposed to be a rescue? Or an assassination?"

"I am _very_ disappointed in those boys." Cologne said solemnly.

"That they tried to kill me?" Ranma asked.

"That they failed." She corrected, ignoring her descendant's startled gasp. "I have long since accepted that it may prove to be impossible to drag you back to the tribe, to serve properly as Shampoo's husband. In that case... after a great deal of contemplation, I have decided that your unwed death will suffice. A poor runner-up prize, to be sure, but you can't have everything."

"Ha!" Ranma barked, gathering ki in one hand and holding it to his torso to sear the wound shut, deciding that he lacked the time for slower, more effective healing methods at the moment. "That's... just the sort of messed up logic that I've come to expect from you Amazons. Hasn't any of you heard of losing gracefully?"

"One could easily turn that question back upon you, son in law." Cologne pointed out. "But really, the only proper victory is an Amazon victory. Anything else is unacceptable."

"Enough." Suika said sharply. "This has become ridiculous. That one belongs to _me_ now. From the moment he accepted the stakes of our battle, and lost, he was _mine_. And you... you _insignificant vermin dare_? Try to take what is mine? Try to trick me with distractions while you break _my_ toy? Beans? You do not _comprehend_ the depths of your erring sins! Do you take me for some whelp with untested horns, to be chased away from what I have taken for my own with _beans_?"

Wind was swirling wildly around Suika by now as she turned her head and locked steely, shining gaze with the fiancees. With every word she spoke, her visage seemed to grow more fearsome and terrible, and it seemed as though her very presence had begun to draw the light and life from the surroundings. The fiancees could almost swear that the blaze from the burning house had dimmed and silenced, and the noise of the surrounding forest gone similarly dead as the trees themselves withered. The very air itself seemed to become a thick, oppressive miasma, choking at them.

"I am Ibuki clan! I am sired of the loins of the oni king _himself_! With my bare hands, I could crush to powder an entire mountain, and shatter the moon where it hangs in the sky! And you taunt me with _beans_? Know this, _impudent slatterns_, that if you remain here I will _destroy you_. I will rip the skin from your flesh and flay the flesh from your bones, I will pluck free your eyes and pour beetle larvae into the cavities, I will make vinegar and lye flow through your veins as blood, carrion beasts and birds shall feast upon your organs and maggots shall devour your tongues, I shall strip the flesh from your bones and grind them into powder, _and your suffering shall not end with a merciful death!_ I will drag your very essence screaming into the underworld, where countless of my kind will spend the rest of eternity visiting upon you _horrors unknowable by unshattered mortal mind_! Now BEGONE!"

The fiancees, having been pushed to a state of near mindless terror by the verbal and supernaturally mental assault, found their will suddenly broken and fled like startled rabbits.

"..... Yeah, okay, I think that might have been just a _little_ over the top, there." Ranma pointed out dully.

"To break and flee after only a few threats..." Cologne grumbled in turn. "... I am _sorely_ disappointed in my great-granddaughter. Fortunate, then, that the roasted beans were not the extent of my preparations."

Without a word, a figure dropped down from seemingly nowhere, hovering for a moment before coming to a gentle stop.

".... Hey, Herb." Ranma said, arching an eyebrow. "Long time, no see."

The dragon prince smirked in reply.

"I owe you a life-debt. To free you from the imprisonment of a demon... I could consider my debt repaid in full."

"How about instead, you pay for my dinner later, and we'll call it even?" Ranma suggested.

"Are you _flirting_ with me, Saotome?" Herb asked, amused. "In any case, I couldn't accept such an offer. There is, after all, no way of knowing whether or not the little demon has somehow taken control of your mind, or anything of that nature. And besides... I must admit, I've been looking forward to a rematch against you."

"... Now that you mention it... I wouldn't mind fighting you again. I've gotten a lot stronger."

"As have I."

Without a further word, they surged into motion.

"Ah, youth." Cologne sighed, watching the battle commence.

"... You look relaxed." Suika said. "For some reason... that really irritates me."

"What's this? Are you saying that you want to pick a fight with such a decrepit old woman as myself."

".... I'm saying that every word I said earlier holds just as true for you, as it did for them, _brat_."

"Ohoho, fiesty." Cologne chuckled. "But if you insist, I suppose I can oblige you. In the thousands of years of Amazon history, we have seen more than a few of your kind dead."

"Oh? How very impressive. Whereas in only the past few centuries.... I haven't kept count, to tell the truth. What kind of oni would I be, if I took note of every single insect I ever happened to crush?"

"... Hmph. I'll enjoy slaying you. There are more than a few valuable spell components to be harvested from one such as you... the village sorceresses and shamans will be in the debt of my family line for centuries."

"Ah... such a sharp tongue. But you shouldn't use it so hastily, when your body can't back it up..."

Fuming, Cologne allowed herself to be goaded into a sudden attack, forgetting for a moment that, for once, she was _not_ the oldest, most experienced fighter on the battlefield.

"So, what's new, Herb?" Ranma said as he twisted around his opponent's blows. "Didn't you mention that your whole curse ended up because of an arrangement for your marriage? How'd that turn out for you?"

"Poorly. Unfortunately, the princess in question did not respond well towards being informed of the new duality of my nature, and it fell through. More vexingly, I cannot take full control of the Musk throne while unwed."

"That's a shame." Ranma said, launching a ki-blast which ultimately blasted apart an innocent tree as Herb flowed gracefully around it. "But that's how it goes with arranged marriages. Sometimes, it works out really well.... And sometimes it doesn't."

"Indeed. Speaking of which... how have things gone with-"

"Don't ask." Ranma cut off immediately.

"I see. Not well, then." Herb concluded, then smirked. "So... why not consider marrying me, instead?"

Ranma stumbled, but recovered in time to avoid taking an elbow to the retina.

"Uh... what? Seriously, no offense, but... just, what?"

"It's a simple proposal." Herb said, glancing over to where Suika had swelled up to enormous proportions and was using a tree she had ripped from the ground in an attempt to swat Cologne like a particularly pesky fly. "The oni and the amazon are embroiled in their own conflict. At some point, the will likely cease paying attention to us entirely. We can then quietly remove ourselves from the area and by the time either of them realize anything is amiss, we'll be halfway to china, where I'll have you crowned my queen."

".... No offense, and I really hate to butt into your scenario with facts...." Ranma said. "But we're, you know, both men."

"Currently, yes, we are indeed. Doubtless, we are both women at times as well, and there are obviously going to be times where we will be the more socially normal combination of one male and one female. Is there a particular point you wished to make?"

"..."

Ranma found for a moment that he was at a complete and utter loss for words, but Herb waited patiently for an answer.

".... It's not that I'm not flattered." Ranma eventually said. "But, you know, I think I'm going to have to go with a 'No' on this one."

"I see. That is a shame." Herb said, shrugging blandly.

He paused, and his arm began to glow with a razor-sharp sheath of ki.

"I hope you don't mind, then, if we take this to the next level. A few scratches should be an acceptable price for your freedom."

"Heh. Bring it-"

"I win!" Cologne yelled, as she came to a backflipped landing between them and propelled herself a few feet further. The interruption was, frankly, so _ludicrous _in nature that neither of them could really help staring at her for a long moment, then turning their heads towards Suika, who had paused in equal confusion, the hellfire coalesced into her hands flickering unabated.

"Hah. Your feet, boy." Cologne barked with a grim sort of amusement.

Even as he knew he should be jumping away already, Ranma also knew that it was already too late, and he looked down. At that very moment, the capture egg that Cologne had gone to a _very_ great deal of effort to have liberated from the phoenix's stores and shipped carefully to her, split in half. It took less than a second for the grasping threads that had been released to engulf him from head to toe, in spite of his struggle against them, and for the outermost layer to become as smooth and uniform as eggshell. Cologne hopped atop it, secure now in her inevitable victory.

"... What... treachery?" Herb gasped, eyes widened. "You... crone! You said we were to _free_ him from mind control, not ensnare him with it!"

"So I did." Cologne agreed. "That we were to free him from the Oni's mind control. And, indeed, if he was ensnared in any such thing, then the egg has already freed him of it. I did not in any way lie. I simply... did not speak all of the truth. Is it my fault, if you were so naive as to take my words at their purest face value, without inquiring any deeper into them? And you think to be a king?"

She snorted.

"Hmph. The entire plan factored around this, my secret weapon. The girls and the beans, what the boys did, whether you fought the oni or Ranma or both, or did not fight at all... they were all irrelevant details! The crux of the plan was simply to create one, single moment in which either the oni or son in law completely lost track of me, to focus on something else. In the end, for the purpose of this battle, which was ensnared was of little importance. Now, with Ranma bound to follow whatever order I give... I have already won."

With a cackle, she slammed her staff into the egg, sending a spiderweb of cracks and fractures out from the impact point.

"Haha! Come out, Ranma! There's a fight to-"

She was interrupted, and caught completely off guard, as Ranma catapulted fist first out of the egg, sending shell flying in every direction and catching her almost directly on the chin.

"What!?" She barked, righting herself in midair.

"You called? You forgot something, though." Ranma said. "Or, you had thought I'd forgotten. I've seen those in action before. I know how they work... and so, I know how to foil them."

Cologne growled as Ranma jerked up a thumb towards his face, drawing attention to exactly how he had done it. How, in fact, he was still doing it.

"... You sneaky little bastard." She said, almost admiringly. "You just... closed your eyes. Without seeing something to imprint on..." She shook herself slightly. "Feh. No matter. Without sight, you are at a severe disadvantage. Herb!"

There was silence for a long moment, and she slowly turned, driven by the realization that Herb was not, as she had expected, rushing into battle again. Instead, he was frowning deeply at her. Seeing that he had caught her eye, he very deliberately raised his hands and began cracking his knuckles.

"Elder." he said venemously. "I do not care to be ordered about. I even less enjoy being used. Consider our temporary alliance hereby nullified."

So agape was she at the proclamation that she barely registered a surge of air in motion in time to roll out of the way as Ranma slammed a kick heavily into the spot she'd just been occupying. She made a partial motion towards a counter attack, but almost as she began he was drawn back and swung in a great arc by Suika, who was grinning as she manipulated the chains attached to his limbs like some sort of deranged puppeteer. He surged forward again, like the ungainly improvised whip he was being used as, and Cologne found him moving too fast for her to do anything against but dodge, and dodge again as one of the dragon prince's attacks slammed into her intended landing point.

She suddenly realized that the game had shifted from a comfortable two verses two into a decidedly less so three against one. It was about time that she practiced the better part of valor.

"You haven't won, son in law." she yelled. "In all the history of the tribe... not _once_ has an outsider escaped us, one way or the other! You will _not_ be the first!"

"First time for everything!" Ranma shot back as Cologne retreated at full speed.

Without a further word said, Herb flew away, officially leaving the rescue attempt as a complete and utter failure as Suika and Ranma looked for the sword he had thrown down earlier, as the only thing nearby with a reflective enough finish for him to see his own eyes in them.

xxx

".... I want to tell you a secret. Earlier... I was thinking about throwing the fight. Letting them win, and..."

"I know. So was I."

".... I understand."

Without a further word spoken, Ranma and Suika sat in the burned out wreckage of the shack, drinking sake and watching as the sun set and moon rose. Gensokyo could wait a little while, yet.

_--Fin--_

xxx

A.N. 4046.... making the total actual-story words of this story equal **15743**/15000. Mission Success!

Also, holy crap, this actually turned out pretty darn romantic. How did that happen?

Secret weapon... well, Happosai thought it was the beans, given that everyone else (Except Cologne) thought it was the beans too.

In any case, I am more than satisfied with this chapter. Went to a couple weird places, yeah, but I pulled in a couple things that I BET YOU ALL THOUGHT WERE INSIGNIFICANT, DIDN'T YOU!? AHAHAHAA! Anyway, cold honest truth time, I have no idea what happens when you hit a box with three grenades in it with a ki blast. I'm going to say that it's this chapter.

Also, not quite clear on what a 'slattern' is. But it came down to that or 'strumpet' while I was trying to decide what Suika should yell, and I figured that 'slattern' sounded better. Sort of rolls off the tongue. Slattern. Sssssllllattern. Yeah.

In any case, can I see this chapter having gone any other way? Nnn- well, yes, but meh. This is how it happened, 'kay?

Also, while this is a self-contained story in and of its own right, for the purposes of that contest....** SEQUEL. **There will be one. I just have to decide if I'll be doing.... or skip straight to... or just..., you know? Bah, you'll find out. It will probably be longer, in that much like everything else I've posted thus far, I'm not sure I'll ever get around to an ending for it.

Oh, and no real relation to, well, anything really, but the 'soul crushingly depressing' pool on danbooru? IT IS SOUL-CRUSHINGLY DEPRESSING. Truth in advertising, ouch. That and that one elfen lied spinoff webcomic with the very Dickens ending have pretty much sandblasted my brain. It's like, holy crap, this is so horrible to look at or think about, but I just can't tear away until it's over, you know?

Blathering done, let me just post this and then send the link into the contest.


End file.
